AN archaeological dig has begun in Birkenhead Park to recover the engine of an RAF Spitfire that crashed 65 years ago.
The Mk 2A Spitfire, having received a new engine, was on a test flight from Hawarden, North Wales, to Birkenhead, when it crashed into the park on October 14, 1942.
The US pilot, Sergeant Douglas Couper Goudie, of the Royal Canadian Air Force, felt the aircraft begin to lose control and baled out by parachute over Liverpool, leaving the plane without a pilot until it crashed.
Bobby Boyd, 76, an eyewitness who was aged 11 at the time, said: "He and many others who saw the aircraft crash ran to the park to see a smouldering hole in the ground."
After two years of planning, the excavation will be undertaken with the co-operation of Wirral Borough Council and the Merseyside Archaeological Office, where the recovered items, along with other memorabilia, will be on display at Fort Perch Rock and Birkenhead Pavilion.
Organiser Doug Darroch's father, to whom the excavation is in memory of, also saw the crash and had related the story that: "Everyone thought the aircraft was doing acrobatics and had dived behind the trees."
source: Wirral Globe
The Mk 2A Spitfire, having received a new engine, was on a test flight from Hawarden, North Wales, to Birkenhead, when it crashed into the park on October 14, 1942.
The US pilot, Sergeant Douglas Couper Goudie, of the Royal Canadian Air Force, felt the aircraft begin to lose control and baled out by parachute over Liverpool, leaving the plane without a pilot until it crashed.
Bobby Boyd, 76, an eyewitness who was aged 11 at the time, said: "He and many others who saw the aircraft crash ran to the park to see a smouldering hole in the ground."
After two years of planning, the excavation will be undertaken with the co-operation of Wirral Borough Council and the Merseyside Archaeological Office, where the recovered items, along with other memorabilia, will be on display at Fort Perch Rock and Birkenhead Pavilion.
Organiser Doug Darroch's father, to whom the excavation is in memory of, also saw the crash and had related the story that: "Everyone thought the aircraft was doing acrobatics and had dived behind the trees."
source: Wirral Globe
